Mother’s Journey – The Call (Prose)
Under The Floorboards
Dawg
Slow, agonizing decline
not measured in days
but in moments stretched past breaking
Every day by her side
hospital smells and bitter weight
Diabetes took her leg
and something in her dimmed
She was always a fighter
but this fight was different
She wasn’t battling the disease anymore
she was up against the thing none of us beat
And I was there
powerless
watching
The day she went into cardiac arrest
I thought I’d lose her right then
Machines screamed
nurses swarmed
I got pushed to the wall
while they dragged her back
They did, for a while
But the woman who came back
wasn’t the same
Something had been left behind
in those frantic moments
I stayed
Day after day
night after night
Every breath drawn from a well
running dry
Her skin went pale
her eyes drifted
She’d squeeze my hand sometimes
but she was slipping
one heartbeat at a time
I didn’t want to believe it
but you can only lie to yourself
for so long
The nurses were kind
the way people who see death every day
learn to be
They didn’t sugarcoat it
just led me gently toward the thing
I’d been dreading most
“Have you thought about what you want to do?”
Her voice was soft
her eyes full of a sympathy
that made me want to scream
How do you decide when to let go
How do you choose between holding on
hoping there’s still some fight left
and letting her rest
free from the pain
The weight crushed me
pressed down until I could barely breathe
But somewhere deep
in the part of me that didn’t want to admit it
I knew
She was tired
She’d been fighting so long
Maybe it was time
I sat in that cold room for hours
watching the rise and fall of her chest
listening to the machines
And I remembered
The woman so full of life
so strong
The one who held my hand
through every scraped knee
every heartbreak
every wall life threw up
The one who was always there
a constant
when nothing else was
It was my turn to be strong for her
To hold her hand one last time
and let her go
With a heart shattering
into a million pieces
I made the call
It wasn’t sudden
No switch flipped
Just a slow fading
a gradual release
I stayed
holding her hand
whispering it was okay
that I loved her
that she didn’t have to fight anymore
The warmth in her hand
began to fade
The connection between us
loosened
like a thread pulled
from cloth once woven tight
I don’t know how long I sat there
after the last breath left her body
Time didn’t mean anything
in that room
She was gone
The woman who had been my everything
was no longer there
And I was left
with the crushing weight
of the decision I’d made
But somewhere underneath it all
I knew it had been right
She was at peace
Free from the pain
free from the fight
A small flickering bit of comfort
one I’d have to hold on to
in the days and weeks
and years to come